Field of the Invention
This invention relates to agriculture and horticulture, more particularly, to novel systems and methods for amending soil by delivering materials thereinto for to maintain better introduction and maintenance of hydration, nutrients, and protectants in the soil.
Background Art
Watering schedules, rain, sunshine, and other weather, with consequent soil moisture, soil warmth, light, and air temperature vary greatly over periods of days during a planting season. Likewise, soils may vary so drastically that any or all of the foregoing conditions may produce different results for various types of soils.
Husbanded crops of Agriculture and Horticulture rely on water as a transport mechanism to draw nutrients and protectants from the ground into the plants through roots and out into stems, leaves, and so forth. Likewise, water acts as a transpiration cooling mechanism by evaporation out through the leaves and other foliage of a plant. Thus, the health of the plants depends upon access to water, nutrients, protective chemicals such as pesticides and protectants (e.g., biocides or pathogencides acting against insects, microbes, fungi, weeds, etc.).
Many parts of the United States receive little rainfall; thus irrigation systems are required in many parts of the country to produce adequate yields. Irrigation or periodic rainfall is often required to have a healthy plant. One major issue is plants may dwell for an extended period without additional water, which inhibits germination, growth, and yields of plants. This is greatly determined by the overall soil structure of clay, silt, and sand in the soil.
Different types of soils perform their functions differently. In particular, sandy soils and the like pass water, nutrients, and protectants too freely. Likewise clay soils tend to hold water, but yet not permit the water to distribute therethroughout. In general, soil may be improved on a small scale by amending, the addition of organic matter such as peat moss. However, standard practice for growers does not allow for the application of amendments to soils. On a large production agriculture scale, soils are typically only improved by plowing under certain plants selected for addition of organic matter. Likewise, waste materials from corrals, grain stalks (straw) and the like may be plowed into tracts of land in order to improve their organic content and their capacity to hold water, nutrients, and protectants for use by the plants.
Gelatin is naturally occurring polymer. Gelatin binds with water to form a “gel.” The existence of naturally occurring polymers such as gelatin has been augmented by the development of synthetic polymers. Such polymers as SAPs, polyacrylates, and polyacrylamides, and other similar gels have been used for different types of binding processes.
Herein SAP refers to a super absorbent polymer that does not dissolve in water. Rather, due to internal chemistry, such as cross-linking, particles of SAP do not dissolve, but swell as spherical entities that maintain their integrity and chemical structure, albeit while holding many times (e.g., hundreds of times) the weight of the actual polymer in absorbed water. Some SAPs may include acrylamides, polyacrylamides, and other products of acrylic acid chemistry. However, they are considered herein to be those polymers that absorb many times their weight in water, while remaining insoluble in water, and therefore maintain the distinctiveness and integrity of each particle thereof.
In contrast, PAM or polyacrylamide, when not designated as a SAP, is a water soluble polymer or co-polymer. It also absorbs water. However, absent the crosslinking of SAPs, it will dissolve in water.
Gels typically are formed by comparatively “long-chain” or high-molecular-weight polymers and thus are often durable in the face of erosive actions such as water running over them. Accordingly, gels such as polyacrylate and polyacrylamides have been used to treat surfaces of ground in order to minimize erosion by passing of water thereover. These gels can retain up to 400× their weight in water in the gel matrix.
In past years, these polymer gels, both water soluble and insoluble, used in the soil can improve plant nutrition and moisture conditions. Many polymers originally developed for agriculture have not attracted widespread attention. Studies found that these gels used in agriculture for improving soils' physical properties may promote seed germination and emergence, improve the survival rate of seedlings, reduce the need for irrigation, and improve the use of nutrients and chemicals.
One of the many reasons the agricultural industry has not adopted the use of gels in farming is that application rates required to demonstrate benefits are comparatively high, actually cost prohibitive for the farmer. Studies have shown benefits of reducing irrigation, fertilizers, and chemicals in crops, while applying 20-30 lbs. of gel per acre.
It would be an advancement in the art if a grower could apply less gel per acre at economical rates that work for the grower.
Higher clay soils can retain larger amounts of water, however, when they begin to dry, compaction is a very serious issue, which leads to very little porosity and oxygen for the plant, and will lead to run-off and erosion of water, nutrients, and protectants. Sandy soils result in quick leaching of water, nutrients, and protectants, as their holding capacity is very limited.
Thus, it would be a great advancement in the art to provide a composition and methods whereby to automatically deliver and store within various soil types a mechanism to absorb, carry, hold, and re-deliver water, nutrients (e.g., fertilizer), protectants (e.g., biocides/pathogencides), and other soil amendments to plants over extended periods of time. It would be an advance to release these materials in a region of greatest utility over time while resisting loss, evaporation, volatility, migration away, and the like, which occur frequently for materials supporting plant growth in existing soils.
Granules such as nutrients (fertilizer) and protectants (pathogencides) are currently being applied in agricultural production via large broadcast systems or directly in-furrow with a drill or air planter. It would be an advancement in the art of farming if a grower could also apply, using their existing equipment, a similar sized granule (similar to seed or fertilizer) containing protectants and nutrients that could amend and enhance the soil (e.g., clay, silt, and sand).
It would be a further advance to optimize the use of the water, nutrients, and protectants being used in the field. This would be a further advance if also optimizing the materials and rates used for amending the soils to better absorb, carry, hold, and ultimately deliver such components back to the plant, which would decrease the loss of water, nutrients, and protectants from run-off, leaching, or both.
It would be a great advancement and simplification if done in such a manner and configuration that the grower would be able to take such advancement and integrate it easily into existing farming methods. The conglomeration of one or all of a hydrophilic material, nutrient, and protectant made into a granule of similar size, shape, and density as existing granules being used by growers would advance the overall art of growing crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, sunflowers, and the like.
Existing granules being used in this art can range in granule size. Some granules may have a comparatively greater density (mass per unit volume), specific weight (weight per unit volume), or specific gravity (density compared to that of water). Others may have comparatively lesser values of such. The term “density” will be used herein to represent the performance for all the above.